In most cases, damage along the trellis will diminish with distance because metal posts and/or trees attached to the trellis will act as grounds to dissipate the charge. How many trees are killed or damaged will depend on many different factors, including the strength of the initial lightening strike, the size and moisture content of the trees that are tied to the wire, and the conductivity of trellis posts. Pressure-treated wooden line posts may serve to direct the current to the ground when the posts are wet from rain, so in some cases only a single “panel” of trees will be killed or severely damaged.
Most growers overlook lightening as a cause of sudden tree death during summer. I’ve been called out to diagnose tree deaths caused by lightening at least six times over the past 35 years. Usually the grower will “This tree was perfect last time I sprayed and now it is dead!” Things that assist in diagnosing lightening include the following: 1. The killed trees or dead limbs appear very suddenly, often in mid-summer (because that is when we get most of our thunderstorms). Brown-black leaves are still attached to the dead trees or limbs. The killed leaves may have sharply bent petioles, presumably because the rapid desiccation caused by the heating deforms the normal arc of the leaf petiole. 2. On trees that are not attached to a trellis, one or two trees at the center of the strike may be completely killed, but the tallest twigs or limbs on adjacent trees may show dieback caused by parallel charges that are of lower intensity than the main charge. The lesser charges that kill shoot tips in adjacent trees dissipates to sub-lethal levels as it moves into heavier wood, thereby killing only is the smaller and most exposed shoots. 3. Tangential cuts through recently killed terminal shoots may show “pelletized” pith in the center of the shoots because the pith contains more water than other shoot tissue and therefore shrinks into distinct segments or “pellets” when it is instantaneously desiccated from heat associated with the electrical charge. 4. Several weeks after the damage was incurred, tangential cuts made through 1-in diameter limbs that still have normal leaves but that are located below killed sections of limbs will often reveal a ring of brown/black xylem tissue just inside the bark. The ring occurs when some of the youngest (outermost) xylem tissue is killed by the electrical charge but the cambium survives and generates healthy new xylem that overlays the damaged xylem. 5. In southeastern New York, trunks of trees killed by lightening are often covered by fungal bracts within several weeks after the lightening strike occurred. These bract fungi can sporulate very quickly on the killed trees because they were already present in the discolored xylem that is often evident in cross-sections of older trees. The tree’s natural defenses keeps these xylem-invading fungi from moving outward into younger xylem, but they can only sporulate if xylem is killed all the way to the bark surfaces. When lightening kills a tree, the killed wood and the water it contains provides the perfect food sources for the bract fungi, so they rapid invade the wood and bark and produce bracts. **************************************************************** Dave Rosenberger, Professor Emeritus Dept. of Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology Cornell’s Hudson Valley Lab, P.O. Box 727, Highland, NY 12528 Office: 845-691-7231 Cell: 845-594-3060 http://blogs.cornell.edu/plantpathhvl/blog-2014/ **************************************************************** On Jan 13, 2015, at 12:17 PM, Rob Crassweller <r...@psu.edu<mailto:r...@psu.edu>> wrote: Lightning can indeed strike the new high density system wires. The charge will travel down the wire and literally "fry" the trees killing them. How many it kills will depend on the strength of the strike and how long your rows are. Rob Crassweller Professor of Horticulture Penn State University r...@psu.edu<mailto:r...@psu.edu> Sent from my iPad On Jan 13, 2015, at 11:56 AM, Steven Bibula <sbib...@maine.rr.com<mailto:sbib...@maine.rr.com>> wrote: Anyone know of lightning strikes on wire trellised systems, and the effects on the trees? Has anyone studied the attractiveness of these systems to lightning strikes, and whether grounding and foliage has much to do with it? Steven Bibula Plowshares Community Farm Gorham ME _______________________________________________ apple-crop mailing list apple-crop@virtualorchard.net<mailto:apple-crop@virtualorchard.net> http://virtualorchard.net/mailman/listinfo/apple-crop _______________________________________________ apple-crop mailing list apple-crop@virtualorchard.net<mailto:apple-crop@virtualorchard.net> http://virtualorchard.net/mailman/listinfo/apple-crop
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